Everything you dream of

[Игорь Николаевич]

Everything you dream of.


It is Saturday night in Cologne. The shops are closed, and only the lights in the shop windows lure strollers to gaze upon the range of goods on display. People walk past the shop windows, occasionally glancing at the mannequins, but their heads are filled with other thoughts. On Saturday night, the city is full of people seeking entertainment and company. The cafes and restaurants are crowded. The tables are exposed to the streets, beckoning passersby with delicious and exquisite wines.

Young people are stuffed into the kneipe . There are hundreds of them sitting and talking and trying to drown out the sound of music, arguing, joking, laughing and cursing one another. At midnight, huge crowds descend on the local discos. To the noisy thump of 120 beats per minute, which they call music, they are dancing techno almost naked in 50 degree heat. For them, this is a form of entertainment, and they enhance their pleasure by swallowing Ecstasy pills.

Older people spend evenings together in Italian or French restaurants. They sit, separated by a candle, eating ice cream, sipping Campari, drinking coffee.

Even the elderly do not stay at home. Hundreds of long-established beer pubs welcome them. They have obscure names, not understandable to young people. From here, you can hear the sounds of paramilitary marches or Tyrolean folk songs, and the hysterical laughter of the older German women. Young people avoid these places.

By ten at night there are more people on the streets than during the day. They come towards you, overtake you and try to squeeze past you. They move alone, in pairs and in large groups. They look at you; sit at tables; pay no attention to you; ask for money; ask how to get to a certain street or kneipe; ask the time; offer drugs, themselves and eternal salvation through God. The city lives out its unique nightlife.



We are sitting with Markus in the “Museum”, a famous kneipe in the student quarter. Music is booming downstairs and at the same time a large TV shows the latest Formula 1 race. I don’t think anyone can make out anything in this hubbub, but probably no one is trying.

Upstairs it is a little quieter. Markus, a huge guy, about 6 foot 5 inches, is a regular at this establishment. He is well-known here. He spent several years in the States and brought back the habit of chewing gum and an easy American accent, which he constantly stresses. Because of his accent, everyone calls him "an American", and he likes that.

We are drinking my favorite beer, Reissdorf, and Markus is telling me a story I refuse to believe.

“There. Do you see that beauty in the corner?” he asks me. “He was sitting in her place.”

"Who? That old man?" I ask.

"Yes, and I saw him there several times. Always at the same table in the corner and always alone".


The old man came every evening and sat at the same table in the corner and always alone. At first, everyone stared at him. Kneipe like this are not where you expect to find old people spending their evenings. Then everyone got used to him. The old man drank his beer, gazed out at the young people, politely rebuffed the prostitutes who spoke to him, thinking that sex was why he came here. In short, he soon became invisible to all. But not to Markus.

Markus immediately noticed when the old man began to look at him. First he looked at everybody, but after a couple of evenings he turned all his attention on Markus, who certainly did not like it. In the end, when Claudia got up from the table and went to the washroom, Markus stood up too and walked resolutely towards the old man.

"If you have nothing better to look at, look at the TV, you old bastard", growled Markus, leaning his 220 pound body over the old man, "And keep in mind, I do not play gay games", he added.

"Excuse me, young man, that I offended you with my defiance", said the old man extremely politely. Markus, who had expected something else, even a brief grumble, was so surprised that he sat down. So clear and calm the old man was.

"I confess, I've long been watching you", added the old man, "but my purpose is not what you suspect. My name is Mr Wulf, and what is yours?"

"Markus", muttered Markus, "Markus Leinburger".

"That's fine. Mr Leinburger, I want to offer you a well-paid job. Very well paid", he said.

"But it's too noisy here. Let's meet tomorrow in the cafe opposite, say, ten in the morning", suggested the old man, and without waiting, got up and left. Markus made his way back to a surprised Claudia and spent the whole evening thinking only about the old man’s words . There was something he didn’t like about all this.


"I didn’t like it. First of all, the old guy didn’t look like a rich person but he was offering big money. Immediately I thought about drugs and stuff like that. You know, I am finished with all that ..."

"Yes. I know."

Markus talks on, absolutely forgetting where he is. I look into an empty glass, and he catches himself and orders two more beers. Tonight is his treat. The light from the TV falls on the papier-mâché dinosaur in the centre of the pub. It is visible only from behind, and its back muscles seem to quiver to the rhythm of Bon Jovi.

"Very best wench", says Markus, and I look again at the table in the corner. A young creature, apparently female, looks at me. She is in a leather jacket and jeans, with a strand of green hair across her left eye and earrings in her right nostril and through her lower lip. The creature, noting the interest of two men, gives a friendly smile back.

"All women are the same and all of them want the same thing. They are all bitches and all they want is money", expounds a philosophical Markus and asks:

"Are there many beautiful women in Russia?"

"Yes" I answer briefly.

"And are they expensive?" he asks.

"It depends. There are expensive ones, there are cheap ones, there some who are absolutely free."

"How so?"

"They cost a bottle of vodka, nothing more".

"That’s impossible", says Markus incredulously.

"Yes, it is", I say. And remember the Soviet army. Five privates on a pass in the Roma slums and a forty year old granny alone there for all of us. I changed the subject:

"And second of all?"

"What do you mean?"

"You said you did not like the old man."


And second of all Markus never liked to get up early, and 10 a.m. for him after a Saturday night was almost impossible. However, at exactly ten a.m. he entered the cafe and immediately saw Mr Wulf wearing the same shabby coat and seated at a table with a copy of Die Welt in his hands.

"Well. Good morning, Mr Leinburger", the old man said, "Sit down please. Would you like some coffee?"

They drank their coffee in silence. The old man never lifted his eyes from the newspaper,and Markus was already nervous when Mr Wulf suddenly asked: "How old are you, young man?"

"Thirty three," Markus said.

"Just think, I'm almost three times older than you. No, don’t expect me to notations and other senile grumbling", added the old man, noticing the reaction of Markus, "It is simple, old people look with envy at young people. They may say they don’t, but they do. They cannot dispel this envy. And young people, they don’t notice old people at all. They don’t see them. Believe me - at your age I too spent half the night in noisy company, but felt totally fresh next morning. Not like now."

The old man smiled. Markus struggled to restrain his mounting anger. Yesterday he was being offered a good job, now his head was being stuffed with stupid morality. It was time to move on to the case.

"You offered me an interesting job." He began diplomatically. "First of all, I want to warn you that I have no higher education. I am a good driver, I can drive heavy trucks. Recently I worked in America as a logger and carpenter. I speak English." – “And that’s it”, thought Markus, but not aloud.

"Yes, yes, a job", the old man checked himself, "I offered you a job. Rather, it is not really work but a service, a unique one time service. And for this I am ready to pay a lot of money."


"I'll order Budweiser. Do you mind?"
"Nope. Order big glasses."

The service is …" the old man continued, "The fact is, Mr Leinburger, soon I will die. I understand that coming from the mouth of an old man like me, this doesn’t sound very prophetic. But I know almost the exact date of my death. My doctor discovered cancer in my stomach and thinks I‘ll live a couple of months more, say, two months. Maybe you do not know, but stomach cancer means a very painful death. Imagine you are lying on a hospital bed and screaming with pain for several weeks. Doctors inject painkillers into you, but it only helps for awhile. Then everything is repeated. Believe me, I've seen people dying and a death like that seems to me to be the most brutal a human can endure."

"I do not understand how I can help you."

" You can help me die quickly and not so painfully."

These last words stunned Markus. During his lifetime he had seen many countries, and worked as a loader and street cleaner. In Oklahoma, he transported frozen veal in trucks. In Chicago he hung from a skyscraper, making repairs to the building, but nobody had ever offered him a job like this.

"You want me to kill you?" he asked directly.

"Well, you put it very bluntly. I would say, I wish you to help me go to quickly into another world. You see, among all the freedoms enshrined in our constitution, we forgot one, no less important freedom - freedom to die. In our country this problem is almost never debated, while, say, in America, there are whole organizations trying to get Congress’s permission to grant a man his death. For you, young man, full of strength and energy, this is irrelevant, but there are hundreds, thousands of people with incurable diseases, with disabilities, for whom death is a deliverance from the suffering and torment to which they are doomed for the rest of their lives."

The old man became agitated. He nervously waved his arms and Markus was afraid he might sweep the small coffee pot off the table or drag his sleeve through the remnants of the jam.

"Please look. This is a recent article in Der Spiegel, number twelve of this year", he said, "Professor Kevorkyan sent 27 people to their deaths at their request. Actually you can consider him a hero. He helps relieve people of their pain."

" Why don’t you find this professor and talk to him?"

" I tried. I most certainly tried to contact him. But all I could figure out was that he no longer practices and is even on trial."


"It’s ridiculous that the old man looks for someone to help him into the grave when he could easily do everything himself. There must be thousands of ways: an overdose of sleeping pills, a car without brakes, a high-rise building at least!"

"You see", Markus tries to explain to me, "In order to commit suicide, you need a lot of courage or passion. Actually it’s almost silly to say it, but suicide is for courageous people, or for the most stupid people. When a person has nothing in his head, it is always easier for him to shoot himself in the head. But the old man, he just could not do himself any harm. He tried. He tried drugs, but after the third pill he stopped and called an ambulance. For hours he stood on the railway bridge across the Rhine, but he could not cross the line. He was just too afraid of death."

"And then he decided to find you?"


"And then you decided to find me?"

"Exactly. I visited all kinds of cafes for young people in search of a man, I thought, who could perform this extraordinary act that I have always failed to pull off? At last, I came across you. You are young and strong. You probably have seen a lot already for your age and you really need the money…."

" Talking of money, how much do you rate your life?"

" Well. I have a good amount in the bank and several apartment buildings in Cologne and Aachen. Under certain conditions, everything goes to you."

" And what are these conditions?"

" You will find them at my lawyer’s office. His name is Mr Hartmann. Here is his card. He is waiting for you. And remember, Markus, you have only a little time."


"I listened to him just out of pure curiosity. I didn’t have any thoughts about killing anybody. I honestly thought the old man was crazy. You never know what kind of lunatics you are going to meet from Cologne…"


Now there are more people in kneipe. They come in groups. They bypass the hall to find a spare table. They do not want leave. Sometimes they sit on the windowsills, or just stand in the aisle waiting till someone goes.
Are there a lot of crazy people there? I don’t see any. On the streets after dark, a lot of different folks wander. There are tramps, dressed in rags, soil mixed into their hair. You can smell them from 10 or 20 metres away. They find different places to sleep: by the windows of expensive shops or on benches in subway stations. I always thought them crazy. But are they?

And how normal is my friend Markus? He is always alone. He loves adventure and freedom. He often changes girlfriends and countries. He is not educated but he is experienced, having travelled and worked in different places. And for me he is always a teenager, despite his 33 years.


" An did you go to his lawyer?" I ask.

"Yes. It took me two days to think about it. I even wanted to throw the card away. I thought, this could be a trick. But by the end of the week, I could not stand it anymore,
so I went to the office of that Hartmann."

" And what did he say?"

" You can’t believe it, but the old freak indeed willed everything to me. Of course, there other paragraphs in his will, and the lawyer didn’t read all of them to me. But one item concerned me personally. If the old man's death came quickly and unexpectedly for him, the legal protocol stated all money and property would go for my enjoyment."

"But didn’t you realize that would make you suspect number one? If something happened to the old guy, every cop in Cologne would be at your door!"

" I thought about that, but later. My first thought was not about killing him and not about how to kill him. My first thought was about the opportunity that had been given to me – the opportunity for richness and wealth. You know, all of us dream about how to get rich. But for 95% of people, this dream stays just that for their whole lives. Of course, you try various options -- you can work really hard, but everything you gain for yourself you can measure by the amount of time and effort it took. You can’t jump in over your head. There is only one thing you can do, just dream."

"So, then you decided to act?"

And then Markus decided to act. Of course, he could just wait it out. Maybe a car would knock the old man down or a heart attack carry him off. Everything would still go automatically to Markus. But the probability this would happen was negligible. And what if it did not happen? How terrible just to sit at home and wait for someone to die. But also how terrible it is to know that a lot of money is almost in your hands, almost yours. All you have to do is take just one step, one very small step and the money is yours.

Markus did not sleep all night, his thoughts in turmoil. He had not read many books, but when he did read, it was mostly crime novels. There was a lot of killing, but almost always the criminals were caught. He must think carefully about the operation and, of course, an alibi. He bought a diary and noted how he spent every minute and every hour. He recorded the time he met different people, the places he visited and where he was seen by different witnesses. Everything was done so that he could identify himself at a specific time and specific place. So that in the case of the quick and accidental death of Mr Wulf, when someone asked him where he had been and who could provide proof, Markus could open his diary and give an exact and full report.

"And you really put everything on paper? Didn’t it make you paranoid?"

"On the contrary. It helped me plan my time and plan the most important action - my hunting of Mr Wulf."

The hunter has to know his game. He needs to know what he’s hunting.
Markus started to watch the old man. It wasn't difficult: Mr Wulf spent almost all the time in his house and came out only late in the evening for a walk in the city park.

Markus didn't try to sneak into the house. Old people are usually bad sleepers at night and they can hear everything. Additionally, Mr Wulf’s house was surrounded by some older neighbours who would watch every movement in the backyard of their neighbour. It was easier to meet the old man in the park. In the evening, there are not so many people there. Just hide in the bushes along Mr Wulf's route and....


"... And you could easily attack him with a knife or a club?" I interrupted.

" I don’t know. I thought everything would happen automatically, like in a dream. And it happened constantly in my dreams. I have killed Mr Wulf in my sleep probably a thousand times. I cut him into pieces, I hanged him, I shot him. I began to hate the old man who was playing such an evil joke on me."

" Did you ever think of abandoning this venture? Just forget about the meeting in the cafe and keep doing what you did before ...."

" I tried and tried many times. But you know, when I walked down the street and saw a nice car or a beautiful girl or just some expensive thing, I always thought: I can have it! I really can possess all these things. When you're out of money, you just dream of something and then you quickly forget your dreams. When you have money, you really can have anything. Imagine, as I then thought, I still could not get anything unless the old man was in my way."

" So what happened in the park?"


Markus came up with something better. Near the entrance of the park there was a construction site. It was easy to remove two sections of the fence and hide the car among the building equipment. Directly opposite the entrance of the park there was a street leading to the highway. All that was needed was to start the engine at the exact time, leave the construction site, hit the old man and then head off immediately to the entrance of the highway.

Markus already knew where he would get the car. He knew a couple of punks living two blocks down the road who had an old Golf. The car always stood, covered with leaves and road dust, on the street in front of the blockhouse. Once a month the couple used the car and disappeared for a few days out of town (maybe to buy hashish in the Netherlands) and after that the car stood again on the same street. It was easy to steal the car because the guys just forgot to lock it and left the car keys in the glove compartment.

"It was late evening. I sat in the car and waited for Wulf. I parked the car so that I could see the old man coming out of the park on my right-hand side, then I had to count to 37 and start the engine. I did this many times in my mind. Finally, I saw him coming slowly out of the gate. There was nobody around. I sat behind the wheel...."

"You must have been very afraid, then?"

"Actually I wasn't, I swear. I was, like, frozen. I could not move my hands and I watched as the old man slowly passed the spot between the gates five meters away from me. I can still hear the sound of his stick on the asphalt: tok-tok-tok. I could not do it. I just realized that I was not capable of it. The old man had clearly overestimated me."

"So you decided to talk to Mr Wulf again?"

"I didn't give up. But I needed to see him and talk to him. I had to explain why I couldn't kill him and I had to ask him to help me."

" This is the weirdest thing I have ever heard. Where did you meet?"

Markus and Mr Wulf met at one of the most beautiful places in Cologne, the cathedral. Besides, Markus chose this place because he didn’t want to meet the old man without witnesses. They were sitting on a bench in the Cathedral and the old man listened to the church music for a long time.

"So it is not easy to kill somebody?" he suddenly asked.

" Do you know why I chose to meet in this church?" Markus asked back.

" Because of the many witnesses. Take a look at these tourists, they are the scourge
of every church."

" No. I asked you to come here because I wanted to ask you a very simple question: Do you believe in God?"

" What a stupid question that is? Of course I do. I saw the mercy he showed me. When I leapt out of my tank that time near Kursk and bullets played drums around me on the armour of my dying machine, I prayed, oh God, how I prayed to stay alive and he allowed me to remain alive."

" But now you are turning against God by trying to kill yourself. And do not deny you will kill yourself. You tempt me to kill you, you bribe me. I am only a weapon in your hands."

" Now I understand what you are looking for. The motive, isn't it? You cannot play the role of passive weapon. You have to be active, so that is why you are looking for a reason to kill me?"

" And will you give me this reason?"

" Well. The money."

" That is not enough for me."

The old man became thoughtful.
" It should be a good reason." He said at last.


" It is not easy to give a reason that will allow someone to kill you. Even if you have one, you hide it, and not only from others, but from yourself also."

" But is it not just as easy as killing somebody? Did you ever kill a soul? I don’t mean a human -- you definitely didn’t -- but just something living?"

" Well, we kill many living things, insects, animals whose meat we eat, fish…. "

" You cannot call that murder. Murder is when you kill someone you can get in contact with, communicate with. Every farmer knows you shouldn’t name a cow or a pig from your own household. Once you name a pig, you have contact with him. It will be much more difficult to kill him."

" Well. A man is definitely not a pig. What reason did the old man give you?"

" It was summer 1942", the old man started, " We attacked a small Ukrainian village, the name went out of my mind many years ago. I was a young gunner, the youngest in my tank. We came from the western side to the village and the Soviets had put a 57 mm antitank gun on that side between two simple village houses. So as a gun man, I had to destroy it."

" So you destroyed it?"

" Yes, but I missed twice and I hit the houses. It was inevitable in those circumstances."

"So you hit the houses?"

" Yes. I saw them burning. And I saw more. I saw people, mostly women and children running out of houses … and burning as well."

" And after that?"

" After that there was nothing. We just went through the village. You cannot see much sitting in a tank."

" But it was war, and you were a solider. You cannot blame yourself for obeying an order."

" I never blamed myself for that, and I never regretted what I had done. I simply followed orders. But over time, maybe another generation will have another opinion and will judge you, do you understand?"

" So that is why you cannot kill yourself? You saw how it is to be killed?"

The old man didn’t answer. Markus left him alone sitting on the bench in the Cathedral, maybe alone with his thoughts, maybe with his memories, maybe with God.

"And after that meeting you decided to give up?" I asked Markus.

"At first, yes. I couldn’t judge him for something that my ancestors, my grandfather had done as well. Maybe I simply was too weak for this job. I couldn’t act as a puppet and I wasn’t able to become the puppet master of myself. But then I thought, I can find my own puppet. If I cannot do it, then there is somebody else who can do this job for me, and I thought of Ali."

"Who?"

"Ali. My friend. He is Turkish. By the way, what do you think of the Turks?"

" What should I think? I am absolutely neutral."

" My auntie used to say the same."

" I am absolutely neutral about the Turks." Auntie Frieda used to say, sitting at a table on the veranda of her old house, surrounding by her girlfriends the same age as she was. They often sat together, basking in the sun, drinking tea with fresh cookies, which Markus was told to bring home from a neighboring baker. Markus was supposed to take part in these conversations, which he regarded as a personal torture.

Aunt Frieda lived in Hahnwald suburb, in the district of Cologne. She had a small but pretty house, and was the widow of a long-deceased police officer.
In the beginning, auntie helped Markus with money and even heavily supported Markus’s efforts to study at university. But after figuring out that her nephew had been repeatedly arrested by the police for disorderly conduct and possession of drugs, she changed her mind. Now Markus was supposed to take care of his aunt’s garden and maintain the house. For this, auntie paid him twice as much as any gardener or house manager would get. In addition to this, Markus was requested to be present at his aunt’s social engagements with the other old ladies, which, to his satisfaction, occurred less and less frequently.

The ladies discussed various topics. A particular favorite was the problem of the Turks. They had come to Germany in the fifties as migrant workers and then brought their families. Their children had become adults, but absolutely without taking root in German soil. The young people chose their ideals, which were often at odds with accepted behavior.

Auntie Frieda treated all young people with kindness and warmth. Very often, her house was filled with foreign students, mostly girls. And one of the shelves in her library was decorated with souvenirs from around the world.

One evening in March, after visiting the Philharmonic, auntie didn’t take her usual taxi home but decided to walk a little along Cologne’s streets. It was a warm silent evening. Aunt Frieda, under the influence of the magnificent Strauss music she had just heard, was in good spirits and even greeted the three teenagers who came towards her. The boys were young, swarthy, broad-shouldered, and spoke languages she couldn’t understand. They blocked her way, and the tallest of them, with a swift sharp movement, tore both her garnet earrings from her ears. Auntie cried out in shock and pain. The same guy hit her in the abdomen with all his strength (a sure way to make people shut up). She fell, her knees covered in blood, and someone snatched the garnet necklace from her neck. The Antique jeweller's handiwork did not yield, and somebody jerked the necklace again. Aunty fell on her left side. Her whole face was covered in blood and she was overwhelmed with pain and shame.

"And where did you hear that they were Turks?" Ali asked Markus, when he told him the story. "In Cologne, there are many foreigners, many dark-skinned people and languages seem to be similar."

" I do not know", Markus said, "but aunty thinks such behavior is typical of young Turks."

"It is strange to hear words about behavior from a nation that burned half of Europe and killed millions of people" Ali answered.


"And did Ali help you in this matter?"

"Nope. But he gave me a phone number. A phone number, he said, I never should give to anyone. And he gave it to me only after I promised not to mention his name when I spoke to the person who picked up the phone. I promised. I called the number. A guy named Karim answered. I explained briefly what I wanted, and he hung up. I called again. Then this Karim started to ask questions about where I got this number from, and so on. But I was silent, I didn’t mention anyone and I even called not from home but from a phone box and I faked my voice. Karim asked me to call again in two days. And in two days he said he had found two guys who were ready to do this kind of job."

Karim said he had found two Albanians who were ready to make a "deal" for twenty thousand Euros each. These Albanians were professional burglars. They came to Germany for a couple of days, did their work and disappeared again. And the guys asked for half to be paid in advance. And Karim wanted five thousand in advance as well. Markus started bargaining and reduced the price by half. He did not have the money, so he decided to sell the most precious thing he had ever possessed - his excellent BMW motorcycle. A couple of days after receiving the money he entered an old tenement house in Zollstock, put the money in letter box number 7, locked the box with a key he found in the box, left the house and later throw the key away.
After that he could do only one thing – wait.


How quickly time passes. It is already after midnight. The streets gradually empty. Late strollers return to their homes. In the kneipe there are fewer and fewer people. Upstairs we are sitting alone.

"You'll write that story?" Markus asked.

" I do not know, probably." I replied.

" Interesting. And how will you finish your story?"

" What about….

The story ends in late autumn. Mr Wulf is in hospital. At night, he cries, and he stops only when staff inject him with huge doses of painkiller. Several times he calls Markus, talking a lot of nonsense on the answering machine, asking for help and asking to excuse him, but Markus did not pick the phone up and finally turned his answering machine off. It took much time and a huge effort to earn the motorcycle back. There was no answer when he called Karim’s phone number. The money disappeared and Ali could not help. A week before Christmas, Mr Wulf died. All his money and property was bequeathed to charities.

"How sad." Marcus said. "But this end suits me well. I don’t want to have all the criminal police of Cologne at my door."

" Don’t worry." I reassured him. "Nobody wants to publish my stories."

" That is bad for you and good for me." Markus smiled. "Well, I must go."

I look at the empty glasses.
" O yes." He said and throws a one hundred Euro bill on the table. "Order yourself something else."

"Thanks. I will". I say.

He turns attempting to go.

"Hey." I ask "Are you OK?"

"Well. Yes."

" I mean, how do you feel? "

" Believe me. I am perfect." He smiles again. "See what kind of "oven" I recently bought."

I look out the window on to the street and see an American motorcycle, its chrome parts shining like decorations on a Christmas tree.

" Expensive toy." I say.

" Men differ in the expensiveness of their toys." He adds.

He goes out into the street, waving his hand in farewell. A gold watch and a massive chain around his neck shine in the neon lights. He starts the engine and wakens the dreaming streets as the motor thunders into life. His motorcycle leaves the night-enshrouded avenue, and gaining speed, disappears. A late passerby, a young man, gazes with envy at the receding motorcycle.

[i_van]

Ну вы, дорогой мой, прямо какой-то двуязычный набоков. Представляю насколько трудно писать на чужом языке.
Однако, было бы интересно послушать отзывы англичан, уж больно легко читается русским.

[ingvar]

It's always easier to translate towards your language (to the language you are the most fluent in).